


the state line (felt like the Berlin wall)

by angelica



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M, Istanbul, Post-Movie, Spoilers, credit scenes featuring the istanbul mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-14 01:03:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4544166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelica/pseuds/angelica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is for Emily who got me obsessed with the movie and made me ship these two. I watched the movie at a screening and loved it. Emily hasn't even seen it yet!</p><p>Hope you like it! </p><p>Title from Death Cab for Cutie's "Crooked Teeth"</p></blockquote>





	the state line (felt like the Berlin wall)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ballroompink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballroompink/gifts).



The hotel they are booked in at overlooks the Bosphorus. She can go out on the balcony and watch ships passing by, listen to the streets loud with a language she doesn’t know, can close her eyes and feel the wind on her skin. It’s strange to be in a city she has never been in before, but also strangely calming. Then again, she lived for years in East Berlin in scrutiny, nothing is strange to her anymore.

She steps back inside the room and jumps on the queen sized bed. Unlike their arrangements back in Rome, this time she is alone in a hotel room. Solo’s room is upstairs and even though they are no longer faking to be engaged, Ilya is next door, being overprotective as usual. Even though he knows that she is a spy herself and has seen what she is capable of, that protective streak of his is ever persistent. Must be a Russian thing, she thinks.

It’s getting dark and she is getting hungry. She doesn’t remember the last time she ate… was it in Rome? She remembers the air stewardess handing them snacks on the plane, maybe that’s the last thing she ate. She grabs her trench coat and puts it on, and after picking her purse, she leaves, trying to make as little noise as possible in order not to attract Ilya’s attention who is in the room next door, probably listening in for every move she makes. She would very much rather have a night alone on her own without him hovering over her.

She gets to the lobby and asks the concierge for recommendations for a place nearby for a quick bite. The man with the nice smile tells her that she can go to the local fish restaurants under the bridge that crosses over to the historical peninsula.

She gets out, the chill of the early fall autumn air making itself present. She wraps the coat tighter around herself and starts walking. She makes a right, walks down a rather steep hill paved with cobblestone. She sees young kids playing soccer with a plastic ball on the street, sees women hanging clothes on clotheslines out their windows, sees men sitting on wooden chairs out on the corner of the street, playing backgammon.

Just before dusk settles, she finally reaches to the shore. The concierge had told her that it is a river passing through, not the sea, cutting through the European side of the city, creating a peninsula that is known as the Historical Peninsula, where the old Ottoman Empire reigned from. She lifts her head up and sees minarets of mosques lining up on the other side. She looks down and sees small boats and larger ships lined up by the shore. Smoke rises from the boats, scaring her at first, but then after closer inspection, she realizes that the smoke is simply coming from grills on the boats where delicious looking fish is grilled.

She feels her stomach grumble, but knowing that she wouldn’t be able to communicate properly with the boats selling grilled fish, she decides to go instead to the restaurants underneath the bridge the concierge recommended. She randomly enters in one and takes a seat. A young waiter comes to her table and immediately starts talking in broken English to her, having recognized that she is a foreigner.

She gulps down the water brought to her, then sits back and watches people, something she loves doing both during missions and normally, something that’s integrated into her personality. There is a table with tourists and the other patrons of the restaurant are all locals, conversing with waiters like they are long time friends.

A few minutes later, a plate of food is put before her on the table. She raises her head to say out loud the only Turkish word she knows, only to meet the eyes of Ilya.

“Enjoy, Милая моя.” he says, then takes the seat opposite to her without invitation.

“Mr. Kuryakin, what’re you doing here?” she asks him, pretending to be all formal. Regardless of their botched kissing attempt, they are both on business in the city so she wants to remain strictly professional.

“I heard you leaving your hotel room.” he answers and she damns him and his bat-like hearing. “Didn’t want you to be out there on your own.”

She smiles at him despite herself and makes a move to take her trench coat off. He immediately gets on his feet to help her, holding the coat by the collar while she wiggles her arms out, then he folds it and places it on the empty chair next to her. “Thank you.”

He doesn’t respond and wordlessly takes his seat opposite to her back, looking gigantic in the chair. He is big, she knows, but looks even bigger on the wooden chair. He looks at her, then looks around, as if to make sure nobody is watching them. He is always aware of his surroundings, she knows, and he wants to remain in control in case of any danger.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” she asks softly before leaning to take a bite from her fish sandwich.

“I’m not hungry, Милая моя.”

She wants to ask him what that means, but then her taste buds take notice of the food she is eating and she is momentarily blind-sided. “This is so good.” she mutters, still chewing. “Take a bite.” she offers, holding the sandwich right under his nose.

“No.” he insists.

“Come on.” she says, still holding the sandwich. “It’s really good. And I know you must be hungry, you didn’t eat anything on the plane.”

He gives her another one of his intense looks, his blue eyes searing right into hers and without breaking eye-contact, he takes a hesitant bite. The look of momentary shock followed by amazement brings another smile on her face.

“I told you, it’s really good.”

Instead of replying, he turns around to locate the waiter and orders a sandwich for himself in Russian. She is surprised to know that the waiter knows Russian, but given that the country is closer to Russia than to any other English-speaking country, it makes sense that they would speak Russian.

He lets her eat her food in silence while he waits for his to arrive. She senses his eyes on her the entire time. Then his sandwich finally arrives and he is done with it at the same time she is with hers.

“Someone was hungry.” she comments, then makes a gesture for the check.

“You don’t want anything else Милая моя?” he asks her and she simply shakes her head. He gets on his feet and walks over to the cash register before she can protest and pays for the both of them. “Let’s go.” he says when he gets back and holds her coat for her.

“Thank you, Ilya.” she opts to use his first name instead of continuing to be professional. She grabs his arm he wasn’t offering and links her arm through it, reminiscent of their days in Rome where they went everywhere arm in arm. He doesn’t say anything, simply takes a step forward, prompting her to follow.

They start walking in silence towards the direction of the hotel, but he doesn’t follow the same route she did before and he probably followed. Instead he keeps by the shore and leads them to the main port.

They sit down on a bench. It is dark already, the city is illuminated by artificial lights. Seagulls fly above them. Even if she can’t see them, they make themselves known by the noises they make. It is all very peaceful.

“That’s the Maiden’s Tower.” he points at the sea, towards the opposite shore. In the distance, she can see a rather short tower barely lighted, standing alone on its own island out there on the sea. “Legend says that an Ottoman emperor placed his only daughter there after a fortuneteller told him that she would be killed by a snake on her eighteenth birthday. The young girl lived on her own in the tower for years, frequently visited by her father.” he starts. She listens intently, liking the sound of his voice. His accent somehow makes the story more interesting. “Then on her eighteenth birthday, the emperor brought a basket of fruits to her to celebrate her birthday. However a small snake had made it into the basket and killed the girl. She died in her father’s arms.”

She gasps. “That’s terrible.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Милая моя.” he whispers.

“No, you didn’t.” she reassures him, then places her head against his shoulder and closes her eyes.

His shoulders are stiff for a moment. She knows he has been trained to be on alert at all times so she is not surprised. Then he relaxes as she catches his arm and places her hand on his wrist, right over his father’s watch. They sit like that for a while, ignoring the sounds of the city. She feels like it is just the two of them in the city.

“It’s getting late, Милая моя. We should go back.”

She nods and lifts her head from his strong shoulder. He gets on his feet first, then holds out a hand for her. She grabs his hand and doesn’t let go. His hand is big, like the rest of him and envelops her rather slender one. It is warm though. She knows that he is fully relaxed now because he continues to hold her hand, without clenching his fists like he does when he gets agitated, like when Napoleon irritates him on purpose. She likes to think that she is able to calm him down.

Like through the most of the night, they walk back to the hotel in silence, choosing a different route, climbing up a hill in a smaller street. Even though she knows how to defend herself and is more than capable to walk alone in the dark in an unfamiliar city, she is glad for the presence of Ilya. He gives her a sense of security even though it annoyed her at first.

The lobby is vacant except the concierge desk when they arrive at the hotel. She releases his hand and quickly walks to the concierge to thank for the restaurant recommendation. She then returns to Ilya and notices that he is rather surprised to see her back with him. She decides that he probably thought she wanted to get away from him and to prove him wrong, she links her arm with his once again and motions towards the elevator.

As the elevator makes its slow ascend upstairs, her arm remains linked with his. She is content and her stomach is full. Yet she knows what is going to happen when they reach to their respective rooms. They will go to bed, separately in their own rooms and continue tomorrow like nothing happened, like they didn’t have dinner together and then spent what could be categorized as a romantic night together. She decides that she doesn’t want the night to be over. And when she lifts her head to look at him, the look he gives her makes her sure that he doesn’t want it to be over either. Yet he won’t do anything about it, she knows. They acted like an engaged couple, faked being in love for weeks and they almost kissed for real once. She wants the real thing more.

The elevator chimes as it reaches to their floor and he moves to open the heavy metal doors. They walk in silence towards their rooms at the end of the corridor, taking slow steps deliberately. They arrive to her room first. She locates her keys in her purse then makes a move for the door.

“Good night, Милая моя.” he says almost in a whisper. He places a hand on her shoulder, then takes a step forward, towards his room.

She remains in the same position, her hand on the door knob but not turning it. “What does it mean?” she asks, referring to his Russian words.

The cold demeanor he usually has breaks for a moment and she is inclined to think that he looks embarrassed. “It’s a Russian thing.” he simply answers, still steps away from her.

“But what does it mean?” she insists.

“It’s just something you mean to me.” he mutters.

She gets angry because he refuses to tell her. “Idiot.” she responds, thinking in German, forgetting that the words are the same in English. “You can’t be just up front with me, can you?”

He looks baffled then he takes a step towards her, trying to intimidate her but she can read him easily. “Who are you calling an idiot?” he asks, anger present in his voice.

“You.” she responds with a straight face, not giving in. “If you want to kiss me, just go for it, I don’t have time for your KGB techniques.”

That does the trick.

One moment he is standing away from her by the wall and the next, he is right before her, his big hands behind her head, his lips on hers. He kisses her in a ferocious, passionate way that is unexpected from someone with such a cold demeanor, but she doesn’t complain. She stands on her toes to match his height even though it’s an impossible task and kisses him back, wrapping her arms around his neck. They both taste like fish and possibly onions but she doesn’t care. He doesn’t seem to care either, as he catches her bottom lip and nips on it. She fights the urge to moan but does it anyways.

That stops him.

“I’m sorry, Милая моя.” he says softly, taking a step backwards. “I didn’t mean to get carried away.”

She watches as he leaves with his head down and gets in his room quickly without looking at her. She stands in the same position, stunned. She puts a hesitant hand on her lips to confirm whether she imagined the whole thing or not. She can still feel his lips on hers, still can feel his hands against her hair.

She finally turns the knob of her door and enters inside, not knowing what to do. That infuriating Russian man, she huffs out loud to herself and then sinks on her bed for a minute. She then changes into her pajamas and gets in bed and wills sleep to come, but it doesn’t happen.  

She remains in bed for a few moments more, then decides to take action. Picking up her room key and putting on her slippers, she leaves her room and walks to the end of the corridor to his room and knocks on the door. She expects him to take his time answering, but he opens the door immediately, as if he was waiting by it, dressed in pajamas similar to those she has seen on him before, his hair wet.

“I got used to sleeping in the same room with you.” she tells him, not looking into his eyes out of what she categorizes as embarrassment.

“Come on in, Милая моя.” He steps away from the door and allows her in. She makes a beeline for the bed and climbs in it. She watches as he waits by the door, his eyes locked on her. Whatever mental war he is having, he finally caves in and rushes to the bed. He kisses her at once. The kiss is somehow even more passionate the first one and almost takes her breath away, crumbling both of their walls.

She wakes up the next morning naked and in his arms, knowing very well the meaning of his words.

 

**end.**

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Emily who got me obsessed with the movie and made me ship these two. I watched the movie at a screening and loved it. Emily hasn't even seen it yet!
> 
> Hope you like it! 
> 
> Title from Death Cab for Cutie's "Crooked Teeth"


End file.
